This invention relates generally to nuclear reactor safety systems and more particularly, to systems and methods for Standby Liquid Control (SLC).
A SLC system of a nuclear reactor injects a liquid, e.g. a boron solution, into the reactor vessel when commanded by the nuclear reactor systems or by an operator of the nuclear reactor. The injection process is sufficient to bring the reactor from full power to a sub-critical condition without control rod movement.
Nuclear reactor systems (herein, nuclear reactor and reactor are used synonymously) require periodic surveillance be done to make sure the reactor systems are operating correctly. However, surveillance procedures for analog SLC systems (herein, SLC system, SLC instrument, and SLC Logic Processor and SLC are used synonymously) require reactor personnel to manually actuate the SLC system in order to test the system and obtain reports on the operability of the SLC equipment. Automation of the manual surveillance functions for analog SLCs is not easily achieved.
Although analog SLC systems provide a very important reactor safety-related function, more may be done to provide an improved SLC system.